How to Run Your Brain Better

6 things I did to radically change my thinking

This week I have been thinking a lot about how people talk to themselves on the inside, and how that shows up on the outside ~ the internal thinking and feeling, expressed as speaking and behaving on the outside.

I wanted to share some of the tools I have learned to run my brain better. You can never get too good at healthy thinking. I'm still learning. With the coaching eye and ear, I have learned to figure people out and help them run their brains better. Tall claim? Read on!

What Neuro-Semantics has taught me as a coach

On my journey both as a coach and a lifelong learner, I've discovered that running our brains more effectively isn't just about what we think. It's about how we interact with our thinking and what meanings we give to events and experiences.

Neuro-Semantics is the study of how we put meaning into our neurology (my definition). How we embody everything we think about, yes, everything!

It's a big field of study, created by a gifted clinical psychologist, Dr. L. Michael Hall who has written 40+ books on the subject, and some written in joint collaboration with, another brilliant psychologist, Bob Bodenhammer.

I trained with both of them and loved every one of their meta-coaching models and trainings. I intend to go back for more in 2024. I have much to be grateful to both of them for. And these teaching are at the heart of my coaching, because they are such robust models of positive psychology.

You bring your meanings with you everywhere, and you embody them. So when we coach with Neuro-Semantics, we simply coach on meanings of self, relating to others in the world, over time.

How you talk to yourself matters

With a deep dive into the world of linguistic patterns and meaning, I began to hear how people talked to themselves, their teams and customers, at a deeper level. I've obsessed about language since the age of 9, so no surprise that I chose this field.

And, as I taught skills to sales people, nervous public speakers, managers, and people who are looking to think and feel better about life and work, I began to build a map of how people talk their way around experiences, so I could coach better.

A big thank you to all those early coaching clients who entered my coaching lab! It was the most fertile ground for learning, applying and testing every tool so I could offer more to clients, in less time. It has always been about offering more and better.

It's been the most intriguing and valuable learning I have undertaken!

Here's what I did consciously to run my brain better...

1. High Self-Listening became my daily habit

"Did you hear that? What do you mean when you say that?" became a guiding question in my life. The act of truly listening to my inner dialogue was the first step towards understanding and eventually mastering my thinking ~ in the moment ~ without reacting, but taking the time to respond effectively.

It was quite the theatre side-seat to discover how much conditioning and borrowed thinking I had picked up in life, if the truth be told!

And part of what I do all day, as a coach, is listen; so I had to start eavesdropping on my own scripts running in the back of my mind. if I was going to be able to get quality results from a coaching conversation, I had to practice listening all the time. Clean up your own act first, was the goal.

2. Reframing Negative Thinking was the game changer

Whenever I caught myself spiraling into a "I don't want..." mindset, I stopped and asked, "What do you want instead, Shiera?" This was a game changer, once I got the hang of it.

This simple act of constant self-coaching shifted my focus from avoidance of perceived unpleasantness, to aspirations to have fun with my thinking and see what I could create. It paved the way for more positive outcomes, better interactions and having way more fun in life. Whatever skill you pay attention, you will be motivated to get better at it.

Apply-to-self is high on my list of things I teach others. Michael Hall drummed this into us during our meta-coach training. I had to become a professional reframer to myself. If I am not doing it, what kind of example I can be to clients?

3. Multi-Perspective Thinking was a stretch for me

Embracing the complexity of life means trying on more than one way to view a situation. By asking, "What else is possible?" and "What could this mean?" How else can I see this? What 10 ways can I look at this?

I would sometimes list 10 ways to see a problem, and it just became quite funny, to be honest. I'd go way out there and make up all sorts of things to shake off the thinking.

I opened my mind to a range of possibilities, each offering its own insights and solutions. I got out of myself completely and invented a few "executive" positions on situations. My creativity muscle also got stronger!

4. Eliminating 'Should' from My Vocabulary was a Must

The words we use shape our reality. It's true! I decided to stop "shoulding" all over my thinking and replaced obligation with desire—focusing on what I wanted, loved, and wanted to choose. We, as NLP meta coaches, use this "shoulding" concept as a fun way to shake coaching clients up to what they are doing.

The technical language for that is moving from "modal operator of necessity" ( have to, need to, should) to "modal operator of possibilities". I know which one I like better! It would make a great job title ~ Chief Modal Operator of Possibilities. This helped me go after what goals aligned with my values and passion.

5. Quarantining the "P" Story (read on)

Finally, I learned not to "P" all over my experience by making things Personal, Pervasive, and Permanent, or running things together into a life-wide problem, and then catastrophising and awfulising into a mental mess. This is another way we shake up people's thinking when in the coaching chair. We make this a fun metaphor, from the meta-coaching toolbox, to play with too.

It helps anyone to compartmentalize and sort out unrelated things. You are then able to meet reality, facts and event as they are, rather than arguing with them.

I am sure you know people who love to argue with reality. Guess what, the facts and truth only have one "opinion". And you can't get around it. So there is only one thing to do.

Cordon off the event or experience in one area, and definitely don't bring it where it doesn't belong, elsewhere in your life. This approach helped me remain resilient and adaptive in the face of things going awry in one area, and stop the contagious "P-ing" all over the rest of my life.

6. Embracing Meditation and Mindfulness - A mental Sanctuary

The journey into my own mind began with a daily meditation practice. Six years later, I literally don't know myself. I am a different person "to myself", which was a great surprise to me. Then I realized, there is so much to us, that we haven't even scratched the surface.

I moved layers of stuff out of the way, and made decisions on how I was going to think about things. It's been an intriguing, interesting experience and worth every minute of reflection time.

Let nothing disturb the sanctuary of your inner mind, including yourself. I just don't go in there with the "garbage" thinking anymore. If I do, I catch it fast!

Meditation has taught me to bounce out of the thinking, and ask 'will this matter in 5 years or next week, even?' It's always a big fat "no". That's putting things in perspective. And for the scientists, this is "neuroplasticity" in action.

Your brain changes, and builds new neural pathways, with a meditation practice. It might also be maturity? I've finally embraced grown-up thinking! I can safely say, however, meditation has had a big part to play in it.

So how did I get to change my brain over time?

I repeatedly reframed every single event or encounter I didn't enjoy. I got curious! I dissected my responses, thoughts, feelings of what happened. I questioned the reality of my thinking. This is mindfulness. Mindfulness is not the Zen version, but the watchful awareness and tracking of the quality of your thinking. Sounds exhausting? It's not! It's a mental training like none other.

Then I began to have a more interesting, pleasant, and stress-free experience of living. It became a way of being.

A new habit is hard at first, but when you feel differently, you learn to love the self-enquiry, like I do, without obsessing over it.

I can also put a lot of this down to the hundreds of books I read on human behavior and language and the thousands of coaching sessions I have had.

My training in Neuro-Semantics was the final piece of the puzzle. It gave me a reliable toolkit to help others do the same, and rapidly.

People don't have time anymore to spend hours figuring out things. They need shortcuts to think and feel better, in a structured way.

I learned so much about human language patterns, tested and watched what happened with clients. It was very interesting. It offered a great feedback and feedforward loops on how to get better at getting to heart of what was going on, inside me and clients.

We are all the same ~ predictable and conditioned

We all run predictable inner scripts like anxiety about our work, not being enough, worrying about what other people think of us, projecting our fears onto others, and believing everyone is thinking the worst of us. Negative self-talk is the bane of happy thinking.

Self-Enquiry is Self-Discovery - Try it!

Watch your thoughts for a week and keep track of how often it veers into the dark spaces of self-sabotage and turning your psychic energy on yourself. When you turn on yourself, nobody else has to do it for you.

So be your own best friend and update your thinking. The rewards are endless.

If you want to run your brain better with the tools of Neuro-Semantics, book a 15 min coaching call and see where Neuro-Semantic Coaching can take your brain, in 4 short coaching sessions. You will be surprised what you discover and how fast change can be.

Productive, happy thinking is a skill, and you can learn it!

A big Thank You to L. Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhammer, my mentors and inspiration, who have given the gift of Meta-Coaching to the world!

Have a great Week!

Shiera